Backblaze show us how to build a 135 terabyte storage pod for $7,384

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Cloud storage is the “in” thing at the moment. Offloading your applications and storing all your data offsite is becoming increasingly cheap to do for the end user, plus it means a theft or fire on-site doesn’t mean all your data is lost.

In order to offer such cloud services data centers need to be packed full of processing and storage equipment which costs money to buy, setup, and run 24 hours a day. One company trying to cut those costs as much as possible is Backblaze. They offer an online backup service with unlimited storage for as little as $3.96/month.

In order to offer this service with unlimited data at such a low price, Backblaze has had to come up with its own data center storage pod. Better yet, they are more than happy to share the design with everyone so they can build their own pods, something institutes like Harvard’s Clean Energy Project are more than happy to take advantage of.

The first Pod Backblaze developed could store 67 terabytes of data, but they’ve recently updated the design to double the storage capacity for a lower overall build price and much faster system. The end result is the Backblaze Storage Pod 2.0 that can store 135 terabytes of data for a build cost of just $7,384.

The beauty of the Pod 2.0 is the fact it uses off-the-shelf components in its construction, meaning Backblaze don’t have any expensive support contracts to pay to support custom server builds offered by another hardware company. Instead, if something goes wrong e.g. a failed hard drive, they can send it back under the 3-5 year warranty they come with and get a free replacement. That works because in 3 years time they are going to be replacing the Pod 2.0 anyway with the Pod 3.0 and whatever storage heights that has reached (doubling again to 270 terabytes perhaps?).

Storing that much data in a single unit also cuts down on the cost of running a Pod in a datacenter both in terms of space and power costs. That combined with the lack of support costs means, scaled up to 1 petabyte of data by using multiple Pods, Backblaze only needs to spend $94,563 over 3 years to run and maintain that massive amount of storage. Amazon’s S3 web service on the other hand, spends a cool $2.4 million as this comparison chart shows:

You can get the full details of how the costs break down over at the Backblaze blog along with a full list of components, wiring diagrams, and an in-depth write-up of the process Backblaze went through over the past few years to create these super-cheap storage servers. The company also want feedback if you spot something that could be improved, or come up with an idea to save even more money on the build.

In case you are wondering, the majority of that $7,000 price tag is the hard drives of which there are 45 3TB drives. As an individual I doubt anyone would ever need that much storage, but I’m sure you could look at the Pod 2.0 design and scale it down for your needs.